


Ten Things Im Miyoung Learns from Her Grandfather

by Lisse



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Grandparents & Grandchildren, Hetalia Kink Meme, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-16
Updated: 2010-05-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 18:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2319233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisse/pseuds/Lisse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Explaining family trees gets really, really awkward when your grandfather looks young enough to be your brother and is technically the country you're learning about in history class.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ten Things Im Miyoung Learns from Her Grandfather

**1.**

How to lie.

It's one of the first things she learns. Her grandfather is her grandfather because he adopted her father a long time ago, when the war had just ended and there was precious little to eat, and unlike most grandfathers, he never ages and never grows up. He has looked sixteen since the founding of the Joseon dynasty and he will continue looking sixteen long after Miyoung has grown up and grown old and died surrounded by grandchildren of her own.

She learns that she must not call him her grandfather in public. She must call him _oppa_ \- like any ordinary little sister would call her big brother - and when she looks older than him, she must call him Yongsu. People will not understand otherwise.

Miyoung hears this admonition all the time as she grows up, until she decides that people must not understand anything at all.

 

**2.**

Words to songs no one remembers.

Her grandfather likes pop and hip-hop - he is, on some level, a teenage boy - but when they're in the family apartment, he sings rhythmic lilting tunes under his breath, each old-fashioned word and turn of phrase like a delicate antique.

Sometimes she goes to the little singing booths in the arcade and scrolls through the menus, past all the ballads and past the trot music her parents are so fond of. She always hopes that maybe she'll find some version of her grandfather's songs. She never does.

 

**3.**

How to drink Andong soju without passing out.

She's seventeen, her grandfather's fresh out of yet another government brawl - he may or may not admit to biting someone - and they sit cross-legged on the floor and make their way through an entire jug, shot by shot.

 

**4.**

All the different kinds of royal court cuisine.

Her grandfather's held pretty much every job that's ever existed, from some kind of foreign minister for King Sejong the Great to an extra in _Boys Over Flowers_ , so it's not too surprising that he knows how to cook. He couldn't teach Miyoung's father how to make anything - not back then, not with the rationing and the shortages, not when it wasn't something men did - but he teaches her now, deftly sorting out ingredients and steaming and roasting and laying out the results in elaborate, pleasing displays.

He says he doesn't remember which kings he cooked for, only that it was back when there was still a royal family.

Miyoung knows how perfect his memory is. She doesn't believe him for a moment.

 

**5.**

That explaining family trees gets really, really awkward when your grandfather looks young enough to be your brother and is technically the country you're learning about in history class.

She finds some old black-and-white photographs and tells her classmates that he died in the war. When she shows an updated family portrait - one from just last year, taken after her father's latest promotion - everyone tells her that it's freaky, how alike her grandfather and big brother look.

 

**6.**

The Super Junior dances. Every single one of them.

 

**7.**

How to make kimchi, even though Miyoung's mother knows how to make it too and their family apartment has a big kimchi refrigerator sitting in the middle of the kitchen.

Her grandfather will have none of that, of course. He makes it the traditional way, carefully salting the leaves and chopping the vegetables and not even bothering to measure the amount of red peppers he's adding. He likes to sneak shots of soju while he's doing it, as Miyoung giggles behind her hand and hides the bottle from her disapproving mother.

His kimchi doesn't taste the same as anyone else's. But then again, why should it? He's following a recipe that no longer exists.

 

**8.**

That he goes to certain places once a year - Jeju, Gwangju, often others - so he can apologize to thin air.

She has to find out why from her history books, because he won't tell her.

 

**9.**

That she must always play Zergs in Starcraft, and that the only acceptable method of attack is to scream "ZERG RUSH!" in the middle of a crowded PC room.

If she accidentally spills her instant ramen on the poor sap sitting next to her, that's just collateral damage. And if the two of them get kicked out of the PC room because they can't stop laughing - well, the irritated owner is probably Protoss anyway.

 

**10.**

That her grandfather thinks he'll never see his twin sister again.

When those first tentative reunions are being planned, Miyoung spends months skipping the expensive math and English cram schools her parents pay so much money to send her to and riding the Seoul subway to different government offices. She walks in like she's a queen instead of a middle school student in an oversized jacket and too much lip tint and a uniform skirt that's too short, and she's informed by various serious-faced men and women that it's not possible for her to apply for her grandfather. He must come in person or make appropriate arrangements.

It's all right, he tells her cheerfully. The boss never lets him near the DMZ anyway. Too risky. No fun. Not worth doing.

But Miyoung knows that every Seollal and every Chuseok he takes out the only picture he has of his sister - from when Japan made them sign the annexation treaty, two stony-faced siblings refusing to dignify the photographer with so much as a glare.

And she looks at how he is now, with that over-the-top personality that fills the room, and thinks that she's not the only one who has learned how to lie.


End file.
